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Minimum 17-year sentence sought in porch shooting

Ed White Associated Press

Updated:
08/28/2014 07:18:35 PM EDT

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FILE - In this Aug. 4, 2014 file photo, Theodore Wafer, of Dearborn Heights, Mich., testifies in his own defense during his trial for the Nov. 2, 2013, killing of Renisha McBride in Detroit. Wafer is scheduled to return to court for sentencing next Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2014, about a month after he was convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting of Renisha McBride. Prosecutors want the judge to follow sentencing guidelines and send Wafer to prison for at least 17 years for murder and the unlawful use of a gun. Defense attorney Cheryl Carpenter is asking for as little as six years. (AP Photo/Detroit News, Clarence Tabb Jr., File)

DETROIT (AP) — Prosecutors are recommending at least 17 years in prison for a Detroit-area man who killed an unarmed woman on his porch, while his lawyer is urging a judge to go as low as six years.

Theodore Wafer, 55, of Dearborn Heights returns to court next Wednesday, about a month after he was convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting of Renisha McBride.

In a court filing, Wayne County prosecutors said Wafer's sentencing guidelines for murder call for a minimum punishment anywhere between 15 and 25 years in prison. That would be in addition to an automatic two-year sentence for unlawful use of a gun.

Prosecutors said they would be comfortable with a sentence within the guidelines. Wafer, like other convicts, could be released by the Michigan parole board after he serves whatever minimum sentence is ordered by Judge Dana Hathaway.

The guidelines for his sentence are enhanced because the jury also convicted Wafer of manslaughter, assistant prosecutor Athina Siringas said.

"There are no compelling, objective and verifiable reasons ... that would justify a downward departure from the guideline range," she wrote.

Defense attorney Cheryl Carpenter countered with her own 12-page filing Thursday, urging Hathaway to go well below the guidelines and sentence Wafer to as few as six years in prison, including two for the gun crime.

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"The facts and circumstances of this case are more akin to manslaughter than murder," Carpenter said. "It does not seem fair or just that a person who does not intend to kill another person is convicted of murder."

Wafer shot McBride last Nov. 2. He insisted it was self-defense in response to the 19-year-old pounding at his doors at 4:30 a.m. The jury, however, found his reaction was unreasonable.

Jurors heard conflicting statements from Wafer. He suggested to police immediately after the shooting that it was an accident and that he didn't know his shotgun was loaded. But on the witness stand, Wafer said he pulled the trigger because he feared for his life.

"What Mr. Wafer did may not be a choice you or I would make. That's not the standard," Carpenter wrote. "What is reasonable to do when you are awoken in the middle of the night, alone in the house, the peephole and front screen broken by what you honestly believe is a person or persons trying to do you harm?"

Prosecutors had argued that Wafer was safe inside his locked house and should have called 911 instead of opening the front door and shooting McBride through the screen door.

It's not known why she was on Wafer's porch, although McBride was drunk and had been in a car wreck earlier that night, about a half-mile away in Detroit.